


This Love Came Back to Me

by LilyRosePotter



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: M/M, Sweet Home Alabama AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 05:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13404468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyRosePotter/pseuds/LilyRosePotter
Summary: “Your fiancée is lovely Jon, I don’t know why you’ve been hiding her from us.” Lovett says brightly. Tommy tries and fails to hide his snort with a coughing fit. Jon could strangle them both.





	This Love Came Back to Me

“Yeah I’m sure they’ll love you and they’ll be so excited to meet you but I need to do this by myself first,” Jon tells his newly minted fiancée for what feels like the fiftieth time. “You know I haven’t been back home in a while. Baby steps… yeah, I love you too. I’ll be home before you know it, in and out.”

He punches the button on the dashboard to disconnect the phone call and rolls his shoulders as the soft rumble of NPR starts again. The healthcare exchanges are crashing and the economy still won’t quite pick up, as Morning Edition is helpfully reminding him, and Jon is carefully steering along the bends in the coast, miles from DC. 

The radio frequency buzzes with static and he rolls his eyes heavenward before reaching for the dial, fingers finding the local station without conscious effort.

“In and out,” Jon murmurs to himself as he’d told Ali. “Just get it over with and then you can move on to the fun parts.” He slowly rolls through the main intersection of town clocking the familiar storefronts, barren in the way of an off-season tourist trap, and noticing the heads turning towards his car, out of place as he feels.

It’s an easy drive from there, navigating the turns he could probably still make with his eyes closed until the low yellow house comes into view. There’s a familiar beat-up pick up truck on the side of the driveway and an unfamiliar dog sprawled on the steps as he gets out of his car, grabbing his briefcase from the front seat. The dog sits up and starts barking as Jon approaches the door and he pauses in trepidation.

“Hey, hey…” he extends a hand towards the dog which does nothing to deter the barking. “C’mon boy I’m friendly…”

“Shadow, shut up!” A voice yells as the door to the house flies open. “He won’t hurt you, just likes to make noi-” Jon looks up from his unsuccessful attempt to make friends into an all too familiar face. Once he could have catalogued each of the expressions flashing across it before it settles on anger but now he’s missing too many pieces. “You, he might hurt. He doesn't take well to ostentatious pricks.”

Jon scoffs. “You’re as charming as ever.” He looks Tommy up and down, letting his face curl with the disdain he’s been building up for eight years, annoyed by the way Tommy doesn’t even flinch under his glare. 

“What do you want, Favreau?” The coldness of Tommy's voice still hits him like a pile of bricks.

“Breaking news, I still just want a fucking divorce.” Jon really shouldn’t be surprised that Tommy turns on his heel and has slammed the door of the house before he can pull the envelope out of his bag. “Fucking hell man, just sign the papers!” He yells through the door, bypassing the dog to slam his fist against it fruitlessly. 

Tommy’s smug face reappears in the window a few seconds later. “You speak to the President with that mouth?” Jon knows he didn’t mask his surprise quickly enough when Tommy's mouth turns up in a wry smile. He honestly didn’t think Tommy would have any idea what he’s been up to. “Yeah I noticed where your fancy certified mail comes from. Didn’t think you’d deign to visit us mortals from your ivory tower.” 

“If you’d signed the things instead of sending them back blank!” Jon takes a breath. “Look! Just come out here and sign this and I will leave you alone forever to become a grumpy old hermit with your dog.”

Tommy shakes his head. “Nah the game is on, can't process legal jargon now.” Jon’s not proud of the way this makes him stomp his foot like a petulant toddler, but something must change on his face because Tommy reopens the door a crack and reaches for the envelope. “Give ‘em here, maybe I’ll get them to you tomorrow.”

“It needs to be now! I have to get out of here!” 

“Hey now, you’ve forgotten to take in the scenery.” Tommy gestures around the yard as Jon glowers at him. “I’ve got to have my lawyer look at them, make sure I’m not being ripped off by your fancy DC sharks.” 

“Really. Can’t you just sign the fucking papers? I don’t want anything from you but your John Hancock, I promised my fiancée I’d be back today.” Tommy’s face does something funny when Jon says the word fiancée before he glances down at the papers now in his hands. 

“Look, I’ll…” He trails off and his head snaps back up like he’s just thought of a way to best Jon at his own game. “Were you even going to go see your parents?” 

“Of course I was!” He wasn’t, actually, he just wants to get out of here but Tommy doesn’t need to know that. 

“Go home, Favreau. One night here won’t kill you.” Tommy’s face is dark and set in a way that’s all too familiar as he pulls the door shut and the lock clicks.

“Sign the fucking papers, Vietor!” Jon yells again before accepting temporary defeat and storming down the steps to his car. He purposely swings the turn a little too hard to make the wheels squeal as he flies out of the driveway, cursing under his breath. Goddamn stubborn asshole only refusing to sign the papers because god forbid he do a single thing that makes Jon happy. 

Jon’s still fuming when he pulls into his parents’ driveway. It’s not like Tommy _wants_ to be married to him anymore, he’s made that perfectly clear. He just wants to hole up in this dumb little town where everything stays the same, including Tommy and his neverending need to torment Jon.

The house Jon grew up in seems to stare at him as he turns off his car in the drive. It looks exactly the same, bringing back a flood of memories. The remnants of the old treehouse peek out from the oak in the backyard and Jon is struck by memories of the boys they’d been, planning to travel the world and write stories of their adventures when they’d never been beyond the boundaries of the town. Now Jon writes stories of policy and plans and Tommy has still never been anywhere. 

It had all been broken from the day Jon met the Senator and his family waiting tables the summer after college. He’d been drifting, trying to figure out his next move and ended up talking to the Senator for hours, uncharacteristically bold in the face of their immediate connection. The next week when the family vacation was over he’d been surprised by the job offer but, delighted. And then Tommy had flatly refused to consider moving to D.C. 

_“We’ve always wanted to do this! We can make a difference and go places…”_  

_“You’ve always wanted to do this, Jon! What the hell am I going to do in Washington, everything I know is here! Why can’t you just be happy with what we have?”_

_“Tommy you could be so much more! Please come with me.”_

_Tommy laughs bitterly. “You don’t want me there Jon. Your uneducated small town high school sweetheart holding you back.”_  

_“Tommy.”_

_“What. You’re so much better than all of us, right, meant for better things, bigger things? Jon Favreau off to change the world and fuck everyone and everything that might tie him down.”_  

_That’s when Jon loses it. He’s never quite figured out the words to apologize when you’ve taken the knowledge built up from a lifetime of loving someone and slung it in his face to wound, but it probably requires that the victim be willing to let you talk to him._  

_“Fine then. Stay here forever and never change and drown your fucking sorrows like your dad did. The only question is whether the alcohol or the cancer or the boredom will take you first.”_  

_He’s never seen Tommy’s face look like it does then and he regretted it immediately but it was too late to take the words back. “Get the fuck out of my house.” “It’s our —“ “Get the fuck out Jon.”_  

Jon got the fuck out and they hadn’t spoken for eight years. Until today. He’d come back to town the first few years for Christmas and such. He’d tried to talk to Tommy when they inevitably crossed paths around town and received the silent treatment and a cold shoulder in return. Eventually he’d given up on bridging the impossible rift he’d opened as the Senator gained prominence. He’d barely come home anymore as the campaign picked up. And now, working in the White House he hasn’t been back here in god, almost four years. 

The front door opens and he sees his mom step out, looking confused at the unfamiliar car. Jon takes a breath and opens the door. Well, in for a dime, in for a dozen. 

\----- 

“Jonathan Favreau as I live and breathe!” Jon drops the bottle he’s holding at the shout from behind him in the aisle. He can feel a grin spread across his face as he turns around to see a dark curly head appearing at his shoulder. 

“Lovett!”

“Look at you, Mr. Big Shot. Wandering around in this lil old place, you lost or something?” Lovett ducks down to pick up the ketchup bottle from the floor and tosses it into Jon’s cart before grabbing the handle and towing it carelessly back down the aisle. The bar on the side smacks Jon’s ankle as it whips around and he winces performatively. “So, how long are you staying?” Lovett continues, undeterred by inflicting injury on one of his oldest friends. 

“Just ‘til tomorrow. Hopefully.” Jon feels a twinge of regret when he sees Lovett’s shoulders drop as they start unloading the cart onto the belt by the register. 

“Wouldn’t want you to be stuck here a moment longer than necessary,” Lovett mutters and Jon lets his hand brush his arm in silent apology. After a moment passes, Lovett turns back to face him with a bright smile. “Well, then we’ve got to make sure to show you a good time while you’re here.”

“Oh no. Oh no no no.” Jon pauses to hand over his credit card to the high schooler behind the counter. He’s pretty sure Tommy used to babysit her and she gives him an appraising look as she hands the card and receipt back. Great, he’ll make the high school gossip mill in the morning. Lovett is grabbing the bags and marching out the door, no doubt expecting Jon to fall in behind him. Predictably, Jon does, popping the trunk of the car from his keyring as Lovett approaches. He flings the grocery bags in and slams the trunk shut, grinning at Jon over the car.

“Come on city boy.” Jon knows he’s fucked already as Lovett grabs his wrist and _pulls_. But his brain’s helpfully reminding him all of the reasons why letting Lovett drag him to the only bar in town is a terrible idea.

“Lovett, I literally cannot do this.”

Lovett tuts at him. “Abusing the English language like that and you a speechwriter. I am certain that you are physically capable of walking across the road and up a couple steps.” 

“My dad’s waiting for me to bring back the groceries.” He’s definitely fucked if that’s the next best argument he can verbalize. 

“Yes. Because how will life go on at the Favreau house without ketchup, cotton balls, and a loaf of bread.” Lovett levels him with an unimpressed look. “You’ve turned coward on me and this is ridiculous. I _know_ you’ve already seen him today, it can’t get any worse.” 

“That’s what you think,” Jon mutters mutinously, but he yields to Lovett’s surprisingly strong grip and allows himself to be towed across the street. The familiar swell of music echoes out from the building as they walk onto the porch. Jon pulls his arm free in one last attempt at resistance but Lovett is already opening the door and shoving Jon inside with a hand on his shoulder.

Intellectually, Jon is sure that the restaurant doesn’t go completely silent as they enter. Not every set of eyes turns towards him as Lovett continues to manhandle him in the direction of the bar. But it certainly feels that way. Jon studiously avoids eye contact with the people who’ve known him since he was born, focusing on his feet crossing the hardwood floor. 

“Well look at what the cat dragged in.” Jon swallows hard, trying to steel himself and then looks up. 

“I don’t like that. That makes me the cat and I really and truly detest cats and you know that and it’s mean.” Lovett’s indignance fades into background noise as Jon freezes in awkward eye contact with his sister-in-law. 

Jon bites his lip nervously. “Um. Hey.” He cringes at himself. Words, Jon, words. 

Stella rolls her eyes at him, not unkindly, and echoes him mockingly “Um. Hey.” She reaches over the bar to squeeze his shoulder and Jon can feel some of the tension drain out of the room. “It’s been what, seven years, and all you can muster is ‘hey’?” 

Jon shakes his head slightly. “Let me try again.” Stella nods encouragingly, smile dancing across her eyes and he takes a breath to steady himself. “Hey Stell, how are you? Sorry I’m shitty at like, being a person.” 

She giggles at that and points at the stool Jon’s standing next to. “Sit down and take a load off.” Jon really should not be here but he’s never said no to Stella before and he’s not about to start now. She props her elbows on the bar, leaning towards him and there’s a murmur around the room as conversations resume, now that there’s clearly not going to be actual drama. Jon’s sure that there are a bunch of people still listening keenly but at least Stella’s successfully made sure they’re not the main event. 

“So that was better, there was like a two syllable word but c'mon kid.” Jon rolls his eyes at her. Next to him, Lovett has hopped up on his own stool and is leaning in intently. Stella is leveling Jon with a thoroughly unimpressed look as she continues, “From what I hear, you’re not doing too terribly at being a person. Shitty friend, maybe.”

“Shitty friend, definitely,” Lovett chimes in. A rush of hot shame floods Jon looking between these two people who he’s been so terrible to. He’s pretty sure if he was in their shoes he wouldn’t even speak to himself, let alone be looking at him with something resembling affection. 

“I’m sorry. I…” He’s not sure where to go from here but he’s saved by Stella shaking her head at him with a scrunched up facial expression that he’s pretty sure means ‘not now’. She straightens up from the bar and moves with purpose to grab three glasses.

“I want to hear some stories of your exciting life in the White House,” she says, as she approaches the taps. “What are you drinking, Favs?” Jon shakes his head at her and, as he expects, she rolls her eyes and ignores him, filling all three glasses with beer. After sliding a glass to Jon and one to Lovett, Stella walks around the bar to sit on Jon’s other side with an expectant look. 

Jon thinks for a second about what aspects of his job make the best stories. He doesn’t spend a lot of time with people outside of politics, outside the administration really. It’s kind of nice to be able to talk about work to entertain, rather than to get Ben’s opinion on a domestic speech or work a House staffer. “So I got to meet the Queen of England last month…” 

It’s nice, he reflects, several drinks and most of his “cool people I’ve met” stories later. It’s nice to sit here in the restaurant where he spent every weekend from the time he could remember until he was twenty-two, surrounded by memories of playing hide and seek around the bar, being put to work sweeping the floor at fourteen, waiting tables throughout high school and when he was home from college. His parents preferred the kids to hang out at their house, of course, but the restaurant was allowed; he and Tommy and Lovett huddled around a table with a puzzle or board game or their growing bug collection under the watchful eye of Mr. Vietor or Stella, annoyed as a teenager about being responsible for her kid brother and his friends but never so much that she wouldn’t sneak them sodas and french fries when she was working behind the counter. 

_“There you are.” Jon weaves through the chairs and tables to drop onto a barstool next to Tommy, who’s sitting with an empty glass in front of him and his head in his hands. “Everyone was looking for you after the service. I sent them on to my house, my mom made so much food.”_

_“I needed a minute,” Tommy mumbles into his hands. “No one’s really been in here since…” Since your dad died, Jon fills in mentally. Since he got too sick to stand in the kitchen and you and Stella couldn’t keep up the pace of working here and taking care of him and you wouldn’t let us help you. Since it closed down two months ago and the town resorted to carry-out pizza in the absence of the tourist restaurant. Since you started slipping away from me._  

_Jon shakes his head at himself. Dump out, comfort in. He can whine to his mom later about how his boyfriend won’t let him do anything to ease his pain. For now, he reaches out an arm around Tommy’s shoulder. For the first time since the diagnosis, Tommy leans into the comfort and Jon squeezes a little tighter._  

_“We’re going to reopen it,” Tommy says softly but with a fire behind it. “Stell and me. We’re going to have a learning curve but we’ll get it there.”_

_“Okay.” Jon wants to be gentle. He doesn’t need to be the one to say that Tommy’s dad had been overworked their entire lives to keep this place afloat._  

_“I called the college yesterday. I’m going to delay starting by a semester or two, stay here and get it going.” Jon gapes at him. Tommy is the most academically minded person he knows. They’re both supposed to start at the state school in the fall and Jon was sure that Tommy had only chosen to go there so he’d be with Jon and be close to home. Tommy could go anywhere and do anything he wanted, it’s impossible to imagine him giving up on school._

_“Tommy. You…” He’s genuinely speechless. “You can’t, not go to college?”_  

_Tommy pulls a face at him, finally looking up from the bar. “Sure I can. It’s just temporary. Stella can’t run the place alone. Once we’ve got a system going I’ll commute or whatever.”_  

_Jon won’t argue with him on the day of his dad’s funeral. There is plenty of time later to try to convince Tommy this is ridiculous. Plenty of time to gang up on him with Stella and Lovett, convince him not to throw away all his potential. Plenty of time to offer that maybe he can wait too, so they can go together like they always planned._  

_Instead, he pulls Tommy close so that his head rests on Jon’s shoulder. They sit there, staring at the wall adorned with photos of restaurant guests, both locals and tourists, that had been his dad’s pride and joy. “People have come from all over to this place,” Mr. Vietor had said when his kids teased him about the pushpins falling off the walls. “It’s good to keep a record and remember how happy we’ve made them.”_  

More than twelve years later, there’s still photos haphazardly tacked to the wall in front of where they’re sitting; Lovett now sitting on the bar itself to better lean into Jon and Stella’s conversation. Jon feels like he can hear Mr. Vietor’s voice echoing from his childhood to the present, _remember how happy_. 

Then, of course, it all goes to shit. Jon doesn’t hear the door open, but he hears the angry footsteps approaching a second before their conversation is interrupted. “What the actual fuck are you doing here.” Tommy’s voice is quiet and measured and absolutely menacing and Jon freezes. 

He’s not sure if he’s lucky or unlucky that the only person who can out-menace Tommy Vietor is sitting next to him. “Thomas. Sit down and be a grown up,” Stella says calmly. Jon’s still got his back to Tommy, but he suspects Stella has grabbed her brother’s arm and tugged him towards the stool next to her. That suspicion is proven correct when Tommy appears in his peripheral vision a few moments later. 

When Tommy has sat down with an extreme display of petulance reminiscent of his worst moments as a teenager, Lovett kicks his feet out from his perch on the bar, slamming Jon in the thigh. “So Favs, you were talking about the jokes!” Jon cannot remember a single thing. He must give Lovett a blank look because he prompts again, “The correspondents’ dinner?” 

“Right.” Jon’s brain is short circuiting but he strains through the nerves and the alcohol to reach for the story. “So we, the speechwriting team, we were working with the President on the draft of his speech for the dinner… We were in the Oval Office and so we kept getting interrupted by different things much more important than our jokes.” Fuck, he’s not telling this story well, but it’s hard to focus he can literally feel the heat of Tommy’s glare. “So after we got interrupted by the aide to the Senate Majority Leader and then, oh it was a call from the Prime Minister of Australia. We finally got to the end of the speech and the Chief of Staff came in and was looking at it…” 

“God Favreau we get it, you know a lot of important people now,” Tommy interrupts. Jon feels his face turn red but he does his best to ignore him. 

“But this joke at the end of the speech, I don’t know if it was even that funny but we ended up having to cut it because the Chief of Staff pointed out it could start a war if the wrong people took it the wrong way.” Lovett gives his shitty story a courtesy laugh at least but Tommy is grumbling sotto voce. “What?” 

“It’s just funny. You coming back here to show off how important you are now. We’ve all seen you when you had the chickenpox the same month you lost your two front teeth, who do you think you’re showing off for?” Tommy’s voice is quiet and controlled, but he’s slipping. Jon on the other hand, is done. 

“I’m sorry that a dumb story about my work makes you feel so inadequate.” 

“God what are you even doing here, you pretentious asshole?” They’re standing now. Jon doesn’t remember getting in Tommy’s face, but here he is. Some terrible part of his brain catalogues that even flashing with anger, Tommy’s eyes are still the prettiest things he’s ever seen. 

“Lovett dragged me in here and we were all being adults until you showed up!” Jon dimly registers an annoyed noise from the bar but all his focus is on Tommy’s stupid face. 

“Don’t blame Lovett for your shit.” 

“Fine. Then I’m here because you’re a stubborn asshole who can’t do anything for other people! I don’t even know why I bothered to drive out here, you never fucking change! None of you fucking change.” Tommy takes a step back like Jon had punched him. Stella makes a soft hurt noise. 

“Favs you’re so full of shit.” That’s Lovett, jumping off the bar to shove his way between them. “You’re the one who fucking left. Tommy’s right, you think you’re too fucking good for us and your selfish ass wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need something.”

Now its Jon who feels like he’s been hit. He knew Lovett was hiding anger but the venom of his words genuinely shocks him. How dare he act like he and Jon are so different. “Like you aren’t planning to do the same thing.” 

“What?” Tommy looks between the two of them warily. 

“Favs. Please don’t.” Lovett looks scared but Jon’s mouth is ahead of his brain, even as he knows he should stop. 

“Come on, Lovett. You’re not planning to take the job offer you’re about to get?”

“What?” Right. Lovett looks shocked because he didn’t know. “How do you even know about that? I sent the application to…” 

“The White House Communications Director? It’s a speechwriting job on the team that I’m in charge of Lovett, I help do the selection.” Lovett looks horrified. 

“Wait. You’re leaving us for DC?” Tommy’s hurt voice is somehow louder than any of the angry words he’d hurled at Jon. 

“I wasn’t… Tommy I was going to tell you. I didn’t think it was going to happen and I don’t even know if I want it. It was just a thing. I thought my application would get tossed on the first look.” Lovett’s face is stricken. What has Jon done now? In his anger, he’s told one of Lovett’s rare secrets. Lovett, who shows so much off so that no one will see what he doesn’t want to reveal.

Filled with self-loathing, Jon turns and runs. He hears Stella call as if from far away, somehow still sounding concerned, “Jon! He can’t…” He doesn’t pause to find out what he can’t do as the door slams behind him. He trips over the last step of the porch and is suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of nausea. He braces his hands on his knees and breathes slowly, willing himself not to throw up on the porch as the perfect cherry on top of this night. 

The door creaks open behind him and heavy slow footsteps approach. Jon straightens up with a grimace as a big hand appears in front of him. “Give me your keys, I’ll drive you home,” Tommy says quietly. 

“It’s.. I’m fine.”

“You’re drunk, you’re not driving right now.” Jon shakes his head. 

“I’ll call my dad.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous Favreau. Give me your fucking keys.” Jon’s suddenly too exhausted to argue with him so he digs in his pocket and hands over his keyring. He watches as Tommy turns it over in his hands carefully, noticing the old piece of seaglass at the same time Tommy does. Most of the time Jon forgets he’s still got that on there, except for the rare moment when he finds himself stroking it almost subconsciously, like Tommy’s doing now as they walk across the street. 

_“Come on Tommy! We’re going to play another game of volleyball before dinner!”_  

_“Yeah one second.” Tommy is crouched in the sand near the waves and Jon, impatient, turns to run back to where their families are set up with picnic blankets. “Wait, Jon, come here.”_  

_Jon reluctantly walks over and bends down to see what Tommy is looking at. “It’s just like rocks and shells dude, aren’t we a little old to be digging around for “sharks teeth”?”_  

_“Ah yes I forgot you aren’t allowed to have fun at the beach once you turn thirteen,” Tommy responds, willing, as always, to call Jon on his bullshit. “Besides, I’ve already found a bunch of sea glass, look!” Tommy opens his hand to show Jon a collection of brightly colored pieces. Jon leans in, fascinated despite himself. Tommy smiles up at him and Jon finds himself grinning back._  

_They see it at the same time, half buried just above the wave line. Reaching for it, their hands touch and Tommy’s hand closes around Jon’s as Jon’s hand closes around the glass. Jon feels like a shock runs through him and they freeze for what seems like a long moment. Finally, Jon turns his wrist over and opens his fingers to look and Tommy slowly pulls his hand back._

_The seaglass is surprisingly large and solid in his hand. Blue and perfectly rounded, gleaming in the sun. He’s startled away from staring at it by a shout from down the beach. “Guys the hot dogs are ready, come eat!” Lovett’s yelling._  

_Jon pushes up to his feet and offers a hand to Tommy, half expecting to feel that same weird tingle when their hands touch. Before they walk back to the blankets, he passes the seaglass still clutched in his fingers to Tommy. “For your collection.”_  

_Tommy grins at him and tucks the glass in his pocket with the rest. That Christmas, Jon had opened a small box to find the glass they’d both reached for in the sand, carefully bored through to make a keychain. It’s hung on his keys ever since._  

Tommy is silent as they get in the car. It takes him a minute to find the button start, but Jon doesn’t dare point it out. Plus, his stomach is heaving dangerously and it’s all he can do to focus on breathing slow and careful. They’ve driven halfway to his parents’ house when Jon realizes he’s not going to make it. 

“Pull over.” 

“What?” 

“Tom pull over, please!” Tommy steps on the brakes and Jon’s got the door open almost before he’s stopped, hitting his knees on the pavement to violently puke into the ditch on the side of the road. He dimly processes Tommy’s concerned noise but everything else is swallowed by the terrible sensations of throwing up. Jon hasn’t thrown up drunk since, well, since right after he left, and memory did not preserve how miserable everything about the experience is. 

It feels like an eternity later when his brain clicks back online and he’s able to take deep calming breaths without retching. He sits up on his heels and rubs at his face. A tentative hand lands on his shoulder and he turns to see that Tommy has dropped to his knees beside him. He holds out the bottle of water that Jon had left in the console of his car this morning and a lifetime ago. Jon takes it gratefully and swishes a bit around in a futile attempt to rid his mouth of the taste. After he spits on the side of the road, he raises the bottle again to take a tentative sip. 

“Go slow.” Tommy cautions. Jon twists to look at him again and is surprised to see a rueful look on his face like he regrets giving the instruction. His face looks tight, like he expects Jon to snap at him and Jon feels furiously guilty yet again. 

“Yeah,” he says instead of any of the millions of things swirling around his head. That feels inadequate, but Jon’s now both drunk and a miserable wretch so it’s going to have to do. “Thanks,” he adds, surprising himself with the sincerity with which it comes out. 

“‘Course.” Tommy squeezes his shoulder and then lets go as he moves to stand. Jon feels the loss of the contact keenly and pathetically. “You ready to go?” Jon nods and takes Tommy’s offered hand to pull him to his feet. He slides back into the passenger seat and leans his head against the coolness of the window as Tommy walks around to the drivers’ side. 

Jon’s surprised to discover he’d fallen asleep when he wakes up to the sound of the door opening in his parents’ driveway. He blinks rapidly to clear his eyes and sees that his dad is standing at the front of the car, talking to Tommy quietly. Jon pulls himself out of the car and slowly makes his way towards them and his dad chuckles at him. “Well aren’t you a sight?”

Tommy, the jerk, laughs at him as Jon flushes deep. He’s leaning back against the hood of Jon’s car like it’s totally normal to have hauled his estranged husband’s drunk ass home and make jokes at said husband’s expense with his dad. Jon hates him. He looks so good. It is truly and deeply unfair that Tommy’s stubborn refusal to sign the fucking divorce settlement is the reason Jon is in this mess to begin with and now he’s just leaning there casually like some kind of greek god or some shit. 

Storming up to the house is out of the question given his still churning stomach and aching head so Jon settles for rolling his eyes as his dad slings an arm around his shoulder and turns them towards the house. Tommy nods at them as he turns to walk back down the driveway and Jon’s dad elbows him. “Thanks again for driving me,” Jon calls, wincing at how stilted it sounds. Tommy jerks his head in acknowledgement and Jon watches him until he disappears around the corner. 

“He’s a good man,” his dad says softly. 

“Yeah.” Jon’s so tired of all of this. He’s tired of himself. “I know he is.” 

\----- 

In the morning Jon drags himself out of bed and pulls on shorts and a T-shirt before lacing up the old pair of running shoes he’d found in the closet. His mom’s in the kitchen and he sits down for coffee and ibuprofen before giving her a hug and heading out the door. He jogs towards downtown at a faster pace than he probably should while this hungover, driven by a compulsive need to fix his fuck-ups or at least try to. 

The restaurant isn’t open yet so he heads down the street towards the bookstore. Looking in the window he can see Lovett’s curly head where he’s shelving books. He’s leaning around a bookcase to yell something to Erin behind the cash register, when Jon hears a car door slam behind him. 

He turns around to see a familiar slim blonde woman getting out of a shiny car that’s even more out of place here than Jon’s own. “Fuck,” Jon mutters. Steeling himself, he walks towards her. “Shelby did you _follow_ me here?” 

His personal gossip columnist slash stalker pushes her sunglasses off her face. “Did you know this tiny little town is on Travel and Leisure’s list of most underrated places to visit in the United States, Mr. Favreau?” Jon gives her his most unimpressed look. “But that doesn’t explain why the chief presidential speechwriter is using his limited time off to hang around here. And without his new fiancée to boot.” 

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I grew up here, as you probably know.” The reason he’s here is public record, but if Shelby’s too incompetent to pull his fucking marriage license he’s not going to help her out. “My whole family’s here. Am I not allowed to spend a weekend with my family?”

Shelby looks skeptical. “A weekend with your family.” Jon nods. “That you’re spending standing outside a sad little bookstore in an empty street at ten a.m.?” 

“He’s here to hang out with me!” Lovett says brightly behind him, slinging an arm around Jon’s waist as he walks up beside him. Jon’s own arm rises around Lovett’s shoulders without a conscious decision to put it there. Apparently Lovett isn't actually going to hate him forever so that’s good. “Hi I’m Jon’s… cousin, Lovett.”

The hand that’s not wrapped around Jon comes up to shake Shelby’s. She looks at it disdainfully before gingerly taking it. “Lovett Favreau?” she asks, pulling out her stupid little tape recorder.

“Yep!” Lovett says cheerfully and Jon turns to him incredulously. _Are you insane?_ Lovett just grins back at him incorrigibly. “Now listen here…” 

“Shelby.” 

“Right. Well, Shelby, we’d love to chat, but Jon here promised he’d help me re-alphabetize the children’s section so we’ve really got to be going. Hope you enjoy your stay!” Lovett tugs Jon into the store while Jon’s still just staring at him dumbly. 

He hears Shelby call out “Mr. Favreau!” behind him, but he ignores her in favor of Lovett. She can fuck directly off, he’s got much more important things to worry about than what she’s going to print next on her stupid blog. 

Inside the store Lovett does head directly for the children’s section and hands Jon a stack of books. Jon groans for effect before starting to sort through them obligingly, dropping to the floor next to Lovett. “My cousin, Lovett Favreau?” Jon asks to break the silence. 

“You looked trapped. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.” Jon laughs helplessly. “Besides don't say cousin like it’s a dirty word, you could do worse than me as a relation.” 

“Yeah. Yeah I could.” Lovett won’t meet his eyes all of a sudden and Jon reaches out to tap his shoulder. “Hey. Lovett. I’m sorry. I was a total dick last night.” 

Lovett raises an eyebrow. “Last night?” 

“Fair.” Jon’s been a total dick for a lot longer than that, and god knows he has a lot more to apologize for, but this one feels important. “But especially last night.” 

Lovett’s turning back to his books with a shrug and apparently Jon isn’t above begging at this point. “Listen to me, _please_.” He’ll just direct his apology to the back of Lovett’s head if he has to. “Look, Jon. I shouldn’t have pulled the job thing in a fight like that. It wasn’t fair. I’m so… I was so excited when I saw your application last month you have to believe me. A little annoyed that you didn’t say anything about it to me, but like turnabout is fair play I guess.” He thinks that slight shaking of his shoulders might be an attempt to suppress a laugh. 

“But Lovett, it was so _good_ . Your writing sample was so _good_ , I literally picked it out of like thirty when we had them anonymized. And I’m sure you wrote it in like half an hour at the last second like you’ve always done. I’m so excited by the possibility of you coming to work with us. Both because you’re like, the best writer I know, aside from the President, and cause well, I miss you dude.” Jon’s breathing a little heavy from rushing through his monologue but god can Lovett just _look at him_.

“Dude.” Lovett’s definitely laughing now. “All those nice words and you end it on _dude_.” 

“Well excuse me for not being up to your rigorous rhetorical standards.”

Lovett finally turns to look at him and holy shit is that a tear in his eye? “You’re a fucking moron, you know that Jon Favreau?” 

“I’ve been told a time or two.” All of the tension drains out of his shoulders at the look on Lovett’s face. But he’s not quite done yet. “I’m sorry I stole your chance to tell everyone about the job. That was really shitty of me to out you like that and I did it to be an ass and I don’t blame you for hating me.” 

Lovett shoves at his shoulder and Jon almost falls into the bookshelf. “You’re such an idiot. I don’t hate you, I could never hate you.” Jon grins. “And that was a very pretty apology. You look good when you grovel. Now help me do my job so I can watch you grovel at Stella later.” 

“Yeah no.” That’s not a conversation he’s having in front of anyone. “Does Richard Scarry go before or after Beatrix Potter?”

“I swear to god you’re actually illiterate,” Lovett grumbles, reaching for the book in Jon’s hand.

After procrastinating by helping Lovett for an hour, Jon drags himself to his feet. “I really need to…” He gestures lamely towards the street and Lovett nods. 

“Hey, the stupid town carnival is tonight. You should come hang out and we can mock it like the old days.” 

“You mean you can mock it and I can be a captive audience?” Lovett shrugs. “Yeah sure, maybe I will.”

“Cool.” Jon heads towards the door. “Good luck!” He raises a hand at Lovett as he leaves, the bell on the door jingling.

Stella is wiping down tables ahead of the lunch rush when Jon tentatively pokes his head into the restaurant. There’s a few people at tables but the place is mostly empty and she looks up at the sound of the door opening. Jon almost turns and flees again but Stella lifts the rag in her hand to wave him in. He walks across the room and grabs one of the extra rags on the table behind her.

“I thought you had other people to do this now,” Jon says as he starts wiping the table Stella points him to.

“Sure. Some things are habit though. And I’m never going to be too good to wipe tables or tend the bar at my own restaurant.” She finishes the table she’s working on and grabs the bucket of cleaning supplies. “Come on.” 

Jon follows her through the back hallway behind the bar to the bench in the alley behind the restaurant. Stella sits on the bench, patting the space beside her and Jon obligingly sits. He can’t think of a time he’s been more nervous. Stell’s been his hero for as long as he can remember and he hates disappointing her. Not to mention she’s sharp as a tack and he’s seen her eviscerate those who’ve wronged her with a few words. 

“Stella, I’m…” She holds off a hand to cut him off as she had when he walked up to the bar last night. Maybe she’s just going to never let him get an apology out. 

“You know, when my baby brother walked into my house eight years ago in tears and told me you left, I thought…” Stella pauses, seemingly lost in thought. “Tommy came in and said ‘Jon left. I basically called him a psychopath and told him to get the fuck out and he’s gone Stell.’ And I thought well shit.” Jon frowns at her and opens his mouth to correct the record, had Tommy really editorialized their fight that much? But she shakes her head at him firmly. “I thought you guys had really fucked it up this time but I thought you’d be back. I underestimated how stubborn the pair of you are, but I thought I knew you Jon. How could I not?” 

Jon’s staring at his feet, wishing he could disappear into the ground. “You can talk now,” Stella tells him. He’s actually not sure he can. He had a whole speech planned out but confronted with Stella’s disappointment and his own shame every plan he had has disappeared. Still, he’s got to say _something_. 

“I’m so fucking sorry Stella. I’m so…” All he can think about is Tommy sitting on his sister’s couch blaming his own words for Jon leaving after Jon said...  “He was editorializing if that’s all he told you, I said some fucking awful things to him. And then, god I don’t know Stella, I was so ashamed and I didn’t think any of you were going to want to see me and it was easier to run away. Clearly that didn’t work.” She snorts softly no doubt, thinking as he is about the mess that he was last night. “I’m sorry that I’ve been such a coward, I’m sorry I hurt him. I’m sorry I caused such a scene last night. I’m sorry for everything I am as a person.” 

Her hand on his shoulder makes Jon finally lift his head to look at her face. It’s surprisingly soft as she looks at him intently. “Tommy’s not the only one you left, you know.” 

“I know. I’m sorry.” 

“I was supposed to hate you for breaking his heart and I just missed you too much.” Jon’s shocked when she wraps an arm around him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pretty pissed at you. But you don’t need to apologize for who you are Jon, I like him a lot. Or I think I do.” 

“I’m not sure I do.” There’s a word floating around in Jon’s scrambled brain, floating away from him, elusive, like when he’s searching for just the right ending for a speech. Half remembered from childhood, encapsulating the love Stella and Lovett have shown him this morning: _grace_. “I missed you too Stell. More than you could possibly know.” 

He leans into her hug and squeezes her tightly. They sit intertwined on the bench for a long time before the sound of cursing echoes out from the kitchen. “I should go see what that is. You hungry? I can probably steal a few minutes to eat lunch with you once I put out that fire.” Jon nods gratefully and follows Stella inside. 

\----- 

“Jon Favreau, is that you?” Jon’s already regretting his decision to come to the carnival. So far he’s run into his kindergarten bus driver, three of his dad’s coworkers, his mom’s hairdresser and his middle school basketball coach. DC might have its own variety of a small town mindset but nothing compares to this. Everyone has been too friendly. Probably genuinely pleased to see him, but every question they ask is laced with probing busibodiness. Jon turns now to see who’s called his name.

“Mrs. Meyer!” he says delightedly when he sees his high school English teacher. Jon walks over to where she’s standing by the senior class booth and she reaches out to give him a hug. She’d always been his favorite teacher, willing to overlook his abuse of word limits on essays and pushing him to submit to writing contests.

She’s turning to the students in the booth selling raffle tickets to fundraise for prom. “Jon writes speeches for the President,” she tells them proudly. They look impressed and Jon flushes. “So you should think about that next time you’re complaining about my daily grammar assignments. My teaching method is a proven success.” 

There’s a chorus of groans and Jon laughs. “I am, in fact, frequently complimented for my mastery of subject-verb agreement. Though I’ve yet to find a need for diagramming sentences.” He winks exaggeratedly at the students and Mrs. Meyer rolls her eyes at him before making a shoo-ing motion. 

“It’s good to see you Jon,” she says. Jon hands over ten bucks for raffle tickets and smiles at her. 

“You too.”

The carnival seems to have gotten more corporatized since he was a kid. In between the PTA and Kiwanis booths, there’s a window installation company display and as he approaches the food trucks, Jon passes three different tables selling single use kitchen gadgets. He hears Lovett before he sees him and smiles. 

“--you could line them up end to end. Probably be able to get to the moon!” Lovett’s sitting at a picnic table, well, on the picnic table, gesturing wildly. Tommy’s straddling the bench, looking up at him, pink cheeked with laughter. Erin and Elijah are on the other bench, Erin looking thoroughly unimpressed with whatever Lovett’s joke is.

“I don’t think you could get to the moon. Maybe like, into the ozone layer where you would, you know, die immediately.” Lovett scowls at Tommy. When he looks up to continue his rant, he sees Jon and waves him over dramatically. Tommy turns to see who Lovett is waving at and if Jon didn’t know better, he’d swear Tommy smiles at the sight of him.

“Hey.” Lovett launches himself off the table to grab Jon’s arm and pull him over. Jon lets himself be dragged, making a helpless face at Erin who just smirks at him. 

“I didn’t think you’d actually show up!” Lovett says delightedly. He pushes Jon down onto the bench and climbs back up on the table, standing in the middle like he’s holding court. Jon sits gingerly on the bench, hyper conscious of Tommy’s legs sprawled towards him.

“Well here I am?” Jon offers. Lovett beams down at him.

“Did you see the demonstration of the as-seen-on-tv massage vest?” Jon shakes his head. “I think Elijah needs one! They offer all encompassing comfort and premium vibrations!” Erin has her head in her hands and Elijah is bright red. Jon rolls his eyes. 

“You can do better than repeating their ad copy.” Lovett looks affronted at the insult to his humor but Jon can feel Tommy’s laugh shake the bench. 

“Fine. I’m too hungry to be funny. Go use your DC money and buy us food.” Jon laughs, leaning his head back in mock exasperation.

“Sure. What do you want?” Standing up, Jon accidentally kicks Tommy’s ankle. Tommy straightens his leg immediately and Jon can’t stop his eyes from following the long line of it as the others are calling out their food orders. He shakes his head and takes a few steps away from the table. 

“Tommy, go help him. He’ll need your strong arms to carry all our food.” Jon doesn’t have to turn around to know that Lovett has used his foot to push Tommy’s shoulder away from the table. The sounds of a small struggle follow him and then he can hear Tommy’s footsteps hurrying to catch up to him. They fall in step in silence. 

Neither of them speaks until they’re in line for Lovett’s disgusting funnel cake. Tommy has an armful of bags with hamburgers and hot dogs and is carefully balancing three lemonades. Jon’s clutching a huge basket of cheese fries and their two bottles of water. “Remember the year we got every single one of our parents to buy us separate bags of cotton candy without knowing we’d already had, like, four?” 

Jon laughs in surprise and at the memory. “Ugh, don’t remind me. I haven’t been able to eat cotton candy since!” Tommy is giggling uncontrollably. “I still can’t believe that we got caught, not because of the puking, but because of Lovett’s bright blue face.” 

“He got cotton candy in his hair!” Jon almost drops the water at the memory. “His mom had to cut it out!” 

Every time Jon thinks he’s got his laughter under control he catches eyes with Tommy and they set off into a new fit of giggles. This is what he’s been missing, Jon thinks. This is what he hasn’t been able to find any kind of substitute for. You can’t replace a lifetime of memories and inside jokes. “What about the year the carousel broke down while we were on it?” Tommy pretty much bends in half with laughter and Jon has to reach a hand out to rescue one of the lemonades before it hits the ground. 

There’s a polite cough behind them and Jon realizes it’s their turn to order. “Can I get a funnel cake with chocolate and peanut butter and whipped cream?” He’s pretty sure he makes a face just thinking about eating it. “And a bag of blue cotton candy?” Jon adds. The sound Tommy makes can only be described as a shriek and he grins. 

When they get back to the table, Lovett’s sitting on the bench they’d abandoned. Jon and Tommy start unloading their armfuls on the table and squeeze in on either side of him. Lovett gleefully grabs for the funnel cake then catches sight of the cotton candy. 

“Oh god no! I have PTSD about that shit!” he yells, shoving it into Jon so hard that Jon falls off the bench, clutching the plastic bag. Jon has to lie on the ground until he can stop laughing long enough to stand up. 

After they finish eating, Erin and Lovett are regaling them with stories of ridiculous customer requests at the bookstore when the music starts. Lovett grins and pushes himself off the bench.

“Tommy, come dance with me,” he whines, pulling at Tommy’s arm. Tommy stays put, shaking his head. “Tommy, how will I know you’re really not mad at me if you won’t come dance with me?” Jon watches as Tommy reluctantly accedes and Lovett drags him towards the stage where the band’s playing. 

“I already told you, I’m-” The rest of Tommy’s statement gets lost into the crowd. Jon’s still staring after him when Erin appears next to him. He lifts an eyebrow at her. 

"You’re not allowed to sit here looking that pitiful Favs, come on.” He follows her through the crowd, spinning her around on the makeshift dance floor while she laughs. Two songs later, Tommy spins Lovett towards them and Lovett reaches out for Erin’s hand laughing. Jon’s watching them disappear back into the crowd of the people on the dancefloor so he doesn’t immediately realize that he’s now standing alone with Tommy, again. 

_Tommy goes missing, like, the second they walk in the gym for prom. He’d come over to Jon’s house for pictures and even been on time. Jon’s mom had been unbearable about it of course, and Stella, who’d driven Tommy over, just egged her on. Her insistence on getting every shot of them ‘all handsome in their tuxes’ had made them late to meet Lovett and Elijah and Erin at the beach for group pictures._  

_Jon still isn’t sure why they had to take group photos; Erin is very insistently only going to prom because ‘it’s fun to put on  fancy makeup and you guys are okay I guess’, and Lovett is pretty much only there because Tommy had quietly walked up to him in the hallway by the ticket table and informed him that he was going. Elijah, who’s only a junior, is technically Lovett’s date._  

_When all the photos were done they’d piled into Lovett’s shitty car, which is another choice Jon doesn’t understand, and gone to the school gym. There aren’t enough decorations in the world to make it look like anything other than the gym, but the student committee has certainly done their best. They make their way in towards the mass of students on the dance floor and that’s when Tommy disappears._  

_One minute he’s next to Jon and the next he’s gone. Jon looks around fruitlessly in the dark, but he’s nowhere to be found. It’s about an hour later when he reappears as smoothly as he’d disappeared. Erin is trying, and failing, to teach Lovett the Electric Slide while Jon and Elijah are laughing, carefully out of range, when Tommy’s arm slides around Jon’s shoulders._  

_“Where’d you go?” Jon asks and Tommy just shakes his head. Jon sighs and leans into him and Tommy squeezes tighter. The Electric Slide ends and some rap song Jon doesn’t know starts playing. He and Tommy both groan._

_This DJ has been playing all of their school dances since they were in middle school and he is literally the worst at this job. The only songs anyone ever knows are line dances and his unknown rap and hip hop only increases the natural tendency of high schoolers to turn any dance into a writhing mass of humanity grinding against each other. Which is like, fine, Jon has been known to grind on the dance floor, especially since he started dating Tommy. But some variety and actually good music for their last dance would have been nice._  

_“Wanna get out of here?” Tommy whispers in his ear. Jon twists to look at him. They’re not allowed to leave the school until the dance is over. Tommy grins and steers Jon through the crowd and well, Jon would follow him anywhere._  

_Tommy leads him through the empty hallways of the school until they get to a door that Jon has always thought was a supply closet. He guesses there could be worse ways to spend prom night than making out with his boyfriend in a closet. Tommy opens the door and pulls Jon inside, rustling around the wall. He must hit a light switch and... this is not a supply closet._  

_Jon vaguely remembers that the school has a now-defunct planetarium. They’d taken a “field trip” to it in, maybe first grade? But he’s basically forgotten about it and certainly hasn’t been inside. The room is full of storage boxes that have clearly been shoved out out of the way to leave an open space in the middle and the ceiling is lit up with stars. Tommy’s moved into the center of the room and Jon follows him slowly._

_“This is where you went?” Tommy nods. “Tom, this, this is incredible.”_  

_Tommy’s beaming. “I thought. I know prom’s stupid, but might as well make it special.” Jon closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around Tommy. “I know I’ve been kind of distant and busy lately.”_  

_“It’s okay, I-”_  

_“Jon, shh,” Tommy cuts him off, kissing his forehead gently. “I know you understand that life’s been crazy with my dad and then the restaurant and everyone yelling at me about this college shit. But I can still be sorry for cutting you out. And I am. So, I wanted to do something special.”_

_“Tommy I love it,” Jon says softly, looking around the room. His eyes land on Tommy’s face. “I love you.” Tommy’s hand comes up to cup Jon’s face for a kiss. When they break apart, Tommy is smiling like Jon hasn’t seen him smile in months._  

_“I love you too.” He reaches behind him to a CD player that Jon hadn’t seen before. Speakers crackle on and Jon grins as he recognizes the soft slow song playing. “May I have this dance?” Tommy asks formally and Jon giggles, grabbing his hand._  

_They circle the room slowly, Tommy holding Jon close to his chest. He’s singing along quietly, “Don't dance all night with me, Till the stars fade from above. They'll see it's alright with me, People will say we're in love.”_  

When Jon looks over, Tommy is watching him carefully. Jon shrugs sheepishly and Tommy’s face shutters. Jon turns towards him, meaning to say… He doesn’t know what he was going to say, but he doesn’t get a chance to find out because Tommy takes a step back and shoves his hands in his pockets.   

Suddenly, it’s all too much. The noise, the people, the nostalgia for the person he was - who he’s never going to get back. Jon turns and pushes through the crowd, not sure where he’s going but just needing to be somewhere, anywhere else. He ends up on the beach, where there’s no sounds but the waves and the calls of birds. 

Everything feels so _heavy_ . Jon drops into the sand and stares out over the water. There was a time when he _liked_ himself. There was a time when he didn’t feel like he was faking his emotions to match the goals he was trying to achieve. Jon likes his job, he likes his life, but he’s so fucking tired of himself. At least the beach is quiet and the waves aren’t asking anything of him. 

He’s lost track of time when a shadow suddenly appears over his shoulder. Tommy sits down next to him as silently as he’d approached. They stay there, unmoving for a long time before Jon steels himself. For the first time in years, the anger covering the hurt has completely disappeared and all he feels is longing and regret. God, he fucked this all up so badly. 

“Hey, can I…” He turns towards Tommy and takes a deep breath. “Can I say something?” Tommy looks nervous but as always, he’s so much braver than Jon about the hard stuff and he nods. 

“Shoot.” 

“I… I need you to know how sorry I am.” Tommy looks like he’s going to disagree and Jon glares at him. “Let me finish.” He doesn’t even know where to start. “I have treated you so terribly. Like, maybe this was all fucked regardless. Maybe it was just never going to work and there’s a reason they tell you not to get married and move in together at nineteen. But I didn’t need to be such an unbelievable dick about it. And then I could have, I don’t know, I shouldn’t have just left and not tried to fix it. And then I came back and was just a demanding asshole and I don’t blame you for hating me.” Tommy huffs a bitter laugh that Jon can’t parse. “I’m really, really sorry Tommy.” 

“It’s not… it’s not, like, all your fault Favs. The world doesn’t all fall on your shoulders.” 

“Well I know _that_. Let me fucking apologize,” Jon sighs. “I never should have said what I said Tommy, I know it was unforgivable. But I’m still sorry.”

Tommy rests his head in his hands. “A fight takes two people, Jon.” Jon somehow forgot how good his name sounds on Tommy’s lips. Which is, not the point, but Tommy hasn’t said his first name in eight years and his pounding heart missed it. “I’m… I’m sorry too. I know I’m stubborn as hell and I know you’ve tried to apologize and I’ve never let you say it.”

Jon sighs. “You had every right.” Tommy makes a face at him and then they fall silent again. 

“God we’re a pair, aren’t we,” Tommy says softly, a few minutes or an hour later. Jon would almost think he’s talking to himself, but as he says it he bumps his shoulder gently against Jon’s. 

“Yeah,” Jon agrees. More than anything, he wants to lean against Tommy, feel him open his arms around Jon’s back. It takes a genuine effort to stop himself. He’s not allowed to do that anymore, he gave that up. Instead he just stays there, their shoulders pressed against each other delicately, while the moon sinks over the horizon. 

_The beach in the height of summer is both Jon’s favorite and least favorite place in the world. Least favorite because it’s crawling with tourists which makes it so loud. Favorite because it means days like this._  

_He’s lying next to Tommy in the sand, stretched out on towels in the rocky section of beach the local teenagers stake out early in the morning. If he sits up, he can see all of his friends; Erin on her own towel a few feet away, probably flipping through a magazine, Elijah trying to get Lovett into the water, Lovett stubbornly refusing in favor of scoping out the tourists for attractive guys with a ‘vibe.'_  

_Jon’s lying on his stomach, halfheartedly reading the JFK biography his mom gave him for his birthday when Tommy stretches and rolls over next to him. He reaches out a hand blindly and Jon grabs his sunglasses and sets them in his reaching fingers. Eyes shielded, Tommy settles on his back with his hands under his head. It hurts Jon’s eyes to look at him too long._  

_“Did you sleep well?” Jon asks lightly, kicking his foot over to tap Tommy’s ankle. Tommy raises his own foot and traps Jon’s under it._  

_“Dude, naps are awesome, don’t be like that.” Jon laughs and turns back down to his book. They’re quiet for a minute before Tommy breaks the silence again. “God, Lovett’s pestering the lifeguard again.”_  

_Jon turns over his shoulder to see what he’s looking at. Lovett is leaning against the bottom of the lifeguard’s chair, in a way he thinks looks smooth but actually looks like he’s drunk. He’s had a thing for this lifeguard all summer, even before Erin reported that she’d seen him with a tourist dude in the hotel lobby. The lifeguard clearly could not be less interested in an awkward not yet fifteen-year-old local, but that hasn’t stopped Lovett yet._  

_“He’s just doing it for sport at this point I think,” Jon says. Tommy hums in agreement, but it sounds kinda distant. Jon turns his head. He can’t tell under the sunglasses, but it looks like Tommy’s staring at Lovett a little too intently. “Earth to Tommy.”_  

_“Do you ever wish you could do that?” Tommy says abruptly._  

_“What, flirt brazenly?” Jon laughs. “He’s not very good at it, I wouldn’t be looking for tips there buddy.”_  

_“No I mean… Never mind.” Tommy sounds weird. Jon props himself up on his elbow to look at him properly._

_“What Tom?” he asks gently. Tommy takes a long time to respond._  

_“I mean… not the flirting, well yes the flirting.” Tommy takes a deep breath and his next words come out in a rush. “The flirting with a dude.”_  

_Jon is speechless. “Oh!” Does Tommy mean… Jon doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say right now. He fervently wishes Lovett were here. Lovett who at ten years old charmingly told the old lady in the grocery ‘no but all the boys will be,’ when she’d cooed about girls chasing him soon. But Tommy’s entrusting Jon with this and he doesn’t know what to say or what to do._  

_Not to mention his own… Look Tommy’s his best friend. He’s been Jon’s best friend since literally forever. But lately Jon’s been… confused? Confused is the wrong word. It’s been different. Sometimes when they brush against each other in the hallway or when their hands meet to pass something at dinner or when Tommy slings an arm around his shoulders he feels this weird tingle. And one night… Jon’s feelings towards Tommy are not so uncomplicated, is the point._  

_“Fuck, this is stupid,” Tommy says and Jon realizes he’s still just staring speechlessly. He still doesn’t have the words so he taps Tommy’s shoulder in wordless encouragement. It seems to help because Tommy continues haltingly, “Jon… I think I might be gay. Or bi. Or I don’t know. But I think I like dudes. Or at least I like… one dude.”_

_Jon doesn’t expect the way his stomach drops when Tommy says that. Tommy likes one dude. Okay. Jon’s his best friend, he can wingman. But he needs to fucking say words. “That’s cool,” Jon says lamely and grimaces at himself. They both laugh awkwardly. “Okay no, that is cool Tommy. I’m glad you told me. Who’s the lucky guy, let’s make a plan.”_

_That’s when Tommy looks away. “I don’t think that’s a good idea Jon,” he says to his towel. “I don’t want to… I don’t want to fuck up a really important friendship.”_  

_Jon’s brain is whirring a mile a minute. Wait… “Tommy, do you like Lovett?”_  

_“No! I mean, no, I do not like Lovett. Well obviously I like him but I don’t like like him.” Tommy is still talking to his towel. Well who then? Tommy has lots of friends, everyone loves him, but Jon can’t think of anyone else who he’d be so afraid to fuck up with._  

_Jon’s looking around the beach like he’s going to get the answer from looking at the tourists and the seagulls when it clicks. “Wait, Tommy!”_  

_Tommy’s covering his face with his hands. He mumbles something that Jon can’t make out but it doesn’t matter. Jon reaches forward and pulls his hands away, leaning over Tommy. Tommy looks away. “Sorry,” he whispers, “I’ll…”_  

_Jon gulps. Then he reaches out to gently grab Tommy’s chin and turn his face back until their eyes meet. Tommy looks terrified, but he relaxes a little when he sees Jon, smiling like an idiot. “I like you too,” Jon says, soft but clear._  

_Tommy’s eyes light up and Jon can’t wait another second. He leans down into Tommy’s face until their lips meet. Tommy’s hands come up to wrap around his head and his shoulders and Jon melts. It’s a little weird at first, he’s kissing Tommy. But it also feels, perfect. He’s kissing Tommy._  

\----- 

Sunday morning Jon wakes up to a text from Tommy: “can you meet me at the restaurant at like ten?” Jon responds quicker than he maybe should: “sure? Why?” The typing bubble appears and disappears like four times before his phone vibrates again. “guess you’ll find out.” 

A few minutes before ten, Jon walks into the restaurant. For once the door doesn’t creak when he opens it and only a few of the people eating breakfast look up. Tommy and Stella are standing by the register talking softly. Jon doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, he really doesn’t, but they don’t look up as he gets closer and he can hear Stella’s gentle but firm reply to whatever Tommy’s said. 

“Look I’m just saying. For someone who’s been holding on so tight for so long, you’re pretty quick to let go.”   

Tommy looks tired. Jon hadn’t realized that this weekend, how tired Tommy looks. “I can’t… I can’t fight it anymore, Stell.” He looks like he’s going to say something else but then he looks over Stella’s shoulder and sees Jon. 

“Hey,” Jon says awkwardly. Stella turns to smile at him and surprises him by reaching out to give him a tight hug. He can’t help but lean into her. She squeezes once more and then lets him go, walking behind the bar towards the kitchen. Jon turns back to Tommy who’s shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. 

“Here,” Tommy says suddenly, holding out an envelope. The divorce settlement papers. “I hope… I hope your second marriage is happier than this one.” His words sound stilted but carefully chosen. 

“Tommy,” Jon says softly, not knowing how to respond to Tommy's swift and quiet change of heart. Tommy shakes his head at him and turns away, walking out the door with purpose and leaving Jon staring after him.

_It’s December and they’re standing on the beach because Jon’s boyfriend is a crazy person who wanted to “see the waves.” Unfortunately Jon is crazy in love with him and hasn’t seen him in a month while he took finals and then went on his extended study trip to Costa Rica. At this point, Jon would probably stand outside in Antarctica if he could watch Tommy smile._  

_Tommy is smiling right now, staring out over the water, cheeks pink and hair blown by the wind. Jon steps close behind him and wraps his arms around him, burying his face in the juncture of Tommy’s neck and back and breathing in his familiar smell. Tommy’s hands come up to hold Jon’s hands tightly. They stand there as the waves crash._  

_“Okay Tommy, I’m cold.” Jon steps back, hoping to encourage a move back to the car. Instead Tommy just turns to face him, looking at Jon intently. He’s got a funny look on his face._  

_“Just…” Tommy visibly draws a deep breath and then bends down towards the beach._  

_“Tommy what are you…” Oh fuck. Tommy is kneeling in the sand, hand coming up from his pocket holding… fuck._  

_“Jon. You’re the best and most important part of my life. Every cheesy love song I’ve ever heard and every sappy movie I’ve ever seen makes me think of you. When I’m not with you, I’m counting down the seconds til we’re together again. I don’t want to waste a single second. Will you marry me?”_  

_“I…” Jon did not see this coming. “Tommy, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”_  

_“Then say yes.”_  

_“We’re nineteen!”_  

_“So?” Tommy is looking at him resolutely. “I have never been more certain of anything than I am that I’m going to love you forever. I don’t remember a day of our lives that I wasn’t in love with you.”_  

_“Same,” Jon says desperately. He’s so overwhelmed but... It’s Tommy. The world is terrifying and so much bigger than he’d imagined, but this is Tommy. His solid rock._  

_“Jon.” Tommy moves to stand up and reaches out for Jon’s hands. “It’s okay. You’re not ready, it’s okay.”  Jon shakes his head furiously._  

_“No. No!” Tommy’s hands are moving slowly up and down Jon’s arms and he focuses on them, anchoring him. “You surprised me is all. Yes of course, Tommy, of course I’ll marry you.”_  

_Tommy’s face breaks into the most brilliant smile Jon has ever seen and he pulls Jon in tight and leans to kiss him fiercely. Jon forgets to be cold, wrapped up in Tommy’s arms. He imagines Tommy’s love as a physical thing, holding him tight, anchoring him to earth. He must be the luckiest guy in the world._  

“You want coffee?” Jon pulls himself away from staring at the closed door with difficulty. Stella is standing at the edge of the bar with a soft look on her face and two cups of coffee in her hands. 

“If you made it? Always.” Jon says gratefully. Stella jerks her head towards an empty booth and he takes a cup from her hand and follows her to it. 

“You okay?” she asks when they’re sitting. Jon’s sliding the envelope into his bag. 

“Yeah, of course.” Jon cringes at the hollowness in his own voice. “This is what I wanted, right?” 

The look Stella gives him makes him feel like she can see right through him to the weird emptiness inside. He’s been trying to get Tommy to sign this damn agreement for years now. He should feel victorious, or at least satisfied. Instead he feels like he’s lost something undefinable, whatever part of himself was still wrapped up in Tommy.

Stella doesn’t ask him anything further and they drink their coffee in comfortable silence. When Jon sets his cup down she says, “So, I guess you’re leaving now.” 

“I have to get back, yeah.” Jon’s surprised that he’s a little sad to be going back. He loves his life in DC, he wouldn’t want to stay here. But for the first time in years, it feels like he’ll actually be leaving something behind here. 

“Don’t be a stranger anymore, okay?” They stand and she hugs him tightly again. 

“I’ll do my best” Jon promises as she lets go. She reaches out to touch his cheek. 

“Love you, kid.” 

“You too, Stell.” 

Jon is walking to the bookstore to say goodbye to Lovett when he hears his name called from down the street. It takes him a second to place the voice and then he whirls around so fast he almost falls over. Sure enough, Ali is standing in his hometown square. With Lovett. And _Tommy_.

If he was in DC, he’d probably get hit by several cars due to the carelessness with which he runs across the street. He stops in front of them and Ali leans up to kiss him hello. “What… what are you doing here?” 

“Hello to you too Jon.” She's laughing and Lovett looks like the cat that caught the canary. Jon doesn’t dare look at Tommy. “It seemed like you might have decamped back here permanently and I wanted to come see what all the fuss was about. Plus, I read your latest headline.”

“What headline?” Jon asks suspiciously and Ali grins at him knowingly as she hands over her phone. _Jon Favreau Scouting Wedding Venues In Idyllic Hometown_. “Fucking Shelby.” 

Ali is giggling again, amused as always by Jon’s appearances on the gossip sites. “Well I didn’t know where your parents lived, so I was just wandering aimlessly until I ran into your cousins here.” 

“Lovett,” Jon growls, trying to breathe deeply and remind himself that he really can’t afford to start another friendship shaking fight with the idiot right now. Lovett shrugs at him unrepentantly. Jon chances a glance at Tommy out of the corner of his eye. He’s studiously looking across the street, with the tight facial expression that means he’s desperately trying to maintain control. 

“Your fiancée is lovely, Jon, I don’t know why you’ve been hiding her from us,” Lovett says brightly. Tommy tries and fails to hide his snort with a coughing fit. Jon could strangle them both. “We were just talking about going to get lunch.” 

“No!” Jon’s reaction is immediate and probably too harsh. On the plus side, it finally makes Tommy look at him, an unreadable expression replacing the carefully blank mask. “I mean, my parents are going to be thrilled to meet you and I’m sure my mom will want to feed us.”

“No one wants to piss off Mrs. Favreau,” Tommy confirms. “I’ll still buy you lunch though Lovett, c’mon.” 

Tommy slings an arm around Lovett’s shoulder to drag him towards the restaurant, Lovett already whining about the technicalities of whether Tommy can buy him lunch at a place he owns half of. Lovett wriggles under Tommy’s arm to wave at Jon and Ali and even through his annoyance, Jon’s struck by a wave of unbearable fondness. 

“Hey!” he calls after them and they both stop to look back. “If I don’t see you before we head out…” Lovett blows him a theatrical kiss and Tommy gives him a brusque nod. Jon watches them go, feeling a quiet unfair ache at how much they don’t need him.

Ali’s chattering as they walk towards her car. “Look I know Shelby is like full of shit but seriously Jon this town is adorable! Can we actually get married here?” 

Jon closes his eyes and raises his face to the sky in a silent plea to whoever’s out to get him. “Sure babe, whatever you want.” He opens the passenger door for her, taking the keys she’s holding out and walking around to the driver’s side. 

“Lovett and Tommy seem great.” Focus on the road, Jon reminds himself, biting his lip nervously. “Well Lovett seems great. Tommy’s quiet.”

He’s only quiet when he’s uncomfortable, Jon wants to say. Most of the time he lights up the room. Don’t tell Lovett, but he’s always been the funniest person I know. He’s kind and generous and cared about my stupid ass for some reason and then I fucked it all up. 

What he says out loud is: “They’re not my cousins.” 

“Okay…” 

“They’re… they’re my oldest friends. Lovett’s just an idiot. And Tommy…” Jon bites his lip harder. He’s got to do this. “Tommy’s my…” He thinks about the papers six inches away in his bag. “He’s my ex-husband.” 

“Oh my god!” Ali is laughing. Laughing’s good right? “Oh my god, you were _married?_ ”

“Yeah,” Jon sighs. “We were twenty and stupid and thought we were in love.” 

He can feel how intently she’s looking at him as he parks in front of his parents’ house. “Oh Jon. What happened?” 

“We just… we wanted different things.” He leans back against the headrest and looks at her. She’s looking at him tenderly and he almost can’t bear it. “It was a long time ago. I just… I needed you to know.”

Ali reaches over to squeeze his hand. “I’m glad you told me. I’m sorry, it must have sucked.” 

Jon shrugs. “Yeah it did.” He takes a breath and opens the door. “Anyway, let’s not sit in front of the house all day.” Ali smiles and basically runs up the walkway. Jon follows her, still trying to shake the image of the way Tommy’s face looked when Ali kissed him hello. 

\----- 

Lovett’s interview at the White House goes fantastically. Dan’s still a little uncertain about the ethics of Jon helping to interview his old friend, but as Jon’s pointed out several times he did pick out Lovett’s application from an anonymous pile. And, as Jon had anticipated, Lovett charms Dan immediately along with the rest of the speechwriting team. Jon is buzzing with excitement when he gets home from work. Lovett, sitting on Jon’s couch playing games on his phone, looks less excited. 

“So I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but like, pending background checks, you’ve basically got the job,” Jon says, dropping down onto the couch beside him. Lovett looks at him with a brilliant smile that only lasts for a second before he looks down again. “What’s up Lo? Are you still freaked out about tonight?” 

“Should I not be?” 

“Dude, it’s like a couple of my friends. How frequently have I had friends you don’t like?” Jon had suggested this party when Lovett called him after finding out that he got the interview. At the time, Lovett had been into the idea of meeting Jon’s friends. Apparently, something’s changed. 

“You’ve never had friends that weren’t my friends first,” Lovett says defiantly. Jon shoots him a look. “And these are fancy DC friends, they’re not going to like me!” 

“Of course they are! You’ve already met Dan and he liked you a lot.” 

“He thought I was a mess. A funny mess, but a mess nonetheless.” 

Jon laughs at that. “Well, you are a mess.” Lovett nods in wry acknowledgement. “But he liked you, I promise. And you met Cody and Ben too, and Ali of course. There’s nothing to worry about.” 

“I’m not… I’m not going to be good enough, Favs.” 

“Where the hell is this coming from?” Jon asks, perplexed. 

“Oh god.” Lovett’s head is in his hands. “He was right and I’m an idiot.” 

“Who was right?” 

“Tommy. He said that all your DC friends were unbearably fancy and pretentious.” Jon flinches. 

“How the fuck would Tommy know?” 

“Cause he…” Lovett slaps a hand over his own mouth. “Never mind.”

“Jonathan Ira Lovett.” Jon glares at him. Lovett shakes his head insolently and Jon shoves him sideways on the couch, climbing half over him. “Tell me right the fuck now.” Lovett shakes his head again. Jon normally wouldn’t push his friends like this but he needs to know, so he plays dirty and starts tickling Lovett’s sides.

Lovett’s shrieking when he finally accedes, “Alright you freak! I give, I give!” Jon sits back on the couch and glares at him. 

“Spill.”

“You.” Lovett pushes two fingers into his chest. “You have some unresolved issues and you should get that checked out.” 

“Lovett,” Jon growls. 

“Okay fine! Tommy came down here, like, I don’t know two years, maybe, after you left?” Jon can’t breathe, all of a sudden. What the fuck. “He came to the city. I don’t know, he thought he was going to romcom outside your window and win you back or something but then he came back home the next day and wouldn’t talk about what happened.”

“But, you know what happened,” Jon prompts. Lovett leans back against the arm of the couch and shoves his feet in Jon’s lap. 

“I should not be telling you this.” Jon reaches over like he’s going to tickle him again and Lovett throws his hands up into the air. “I’m going to tell you, chill the fuck out. I guess he came to meet you after work and you were going out with friends for drinks. And so he followed you like a stalker but you all were like doing shop talk and he couldn’t follow a word you were saying. And then you left the bar with some guy and Tommy did his best serial killer impression and followed you home with him and well...”

“Fuck,” Jon says softly. He doesn’t know who it would have been and that definitely says something about who he’d been in those early years post-Tommy. 

“Yeah,” Lovett agrees. “You didn’t seem like you and he didn’t think he could offer what you were looking for or whatever. So he came home and moped and we got the story out of him by getting him drunk. And then he got all serious into working, even more than usual, and started reading all the books and… yeah. “ 

“Fuck,” Jon says again. There’s more to the story than Lovett’s telling, he can tell, but he’s pushed for enough secrets for one night. “Okay, so, that sucks. Lots to unpack there. But it doesn’t have anything to do with my friends liking you tonight. Stop freaking out.” 

Lovett laughs bitterly. “Well as long as you tell me to stop freaking out.” Jon squeezes his foot and Lovett relaxes a bit. “I’ll try, okay?” 

Jon smiles at him as the door swings open and Ali flies in. “Hi honey, I’m home,” she calls cheerfully and Jon leans backwards on the sofa as she leans down to kiss him. It’s just because they’ve been talking about him that Jon’s dumb brain calls up the image of Tommy on the town square two months ago, watching Ali kiss him. He shakes his head to clear it and pushes himself off the couch, ignoring Lovett’s whine of disapproval as his feet are knocked off Jon’s lap. 

Jon busies himself with getting ready for the party and then greeting his friends as they walk in. His traitorous brain won’t let it go. He’s talking to Cody and Ben about the speech next week and all he sees is Tommy in the town square. He’s talking to Josh and Dan about the press briefing this morning and Tommy’s standing outside the apartment he lived in in the senate days, watching Jon giggly and drunk, about to hook up with one of his coworkers. Alyssa is telling him about the nightmare of four meetings scheduled at the same time and it’s Tommy’s face on the day he left. 

He’s lost track of Lovett in the chaos of all the people in his apartment, he realizes about an hour in, so he excuses himself from the conversation he’s not participating in anyway and goes to look for him. He finds him leaning against the kitchen counter talking to Ronan and almost laughs out loud. If Jon has one “fancy DC friend,” it’s probably the genius son of Hollywood royalty. Of course, he’s also pretty much exactly Lovett’s type. 

After everyone’s headed out and Ali’s headed to bed, Jon and Lovett are sitting on the couch again. Jon tilts his head onto Lovett’s shoulder, ignoring his performative groan about physical contact. “So, were they terrible DC snobs?” 

“Yes,” Lovett says firmly. Jon pulls back to give him an affronted look but Lovett just laughs. “They are. But I like them anyway.” Jon chuckles and leans on Lovett again. Lovett’s hand comes up to muss his hair. “You know, you’re a DC snob now too. But I like you best.” 

\----- 

When his American Politics professor had found out that he was going to be in the area for his wedding, she’d sent him a super nice email inviting him and any friends or coworkers he wanted to bring along to come talk to a couple of her classes. Jon had been unsure, but Alyssa had found out and made him say yes. 

Now, after taking what felt like millions of questions from students who were way more interested than Jon remembered being as a college sophomore, he, Dan, Alyssa, and Ronan are wandering around campus. Jon’s idly pointing things out as they walk around. It feels weird to be back here.   

“So Favs,” Alyssa asks when they’re walking past the student union. “Were the four best years of your life spending every minute on this campus?”

Jon laughs, walking backwards in his best tour guide impression. “Sure. Gotta love communal showers and screaming drunk frat bros every night.” The better years were the last two when he commuted to campus during the day and went home to Tommy every night.

“I just had an image of you playing beer pong while shirtless pop into my head and I demand that we reenact your college days immediately.” 

“God, please no,” Dan looks horrified. “Someone would put the picture on the internet. Favs, please don’t do that to me.” 

Jon shrugs exaggeratedly, enjoying watching Dan’s face turn red. “Dude, what happened in Vegas…” Jon’s so busy watching Dan have yet another fit about the fact that no one will tell him what happened at Jon’s bachelor party that he forgets to watch where he’s going. He sees Alyssa open her mouth to warn him just as he backs straight into someone. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry!” Jon turns around to see a blond head bent down to pick up the stack of stuff Jon’s made him drop and he leans down to help. They very nearly bump heads as they straighten back up and, fuck. 

“Still haven’t mastered walking?” Tommy says teasingly, the wry smile tugging at his lips at odds with the way his eyes are nervously darting around the quad. Jon wishes the ground would open up and swallow him, and his bright red face, whole. 

“Obviously not.” Get it under control Favreau. It’s totally normal to run into your ex-husband the day before your wedding with a bunch of friends who don’t know you even _have_ an ex-husband. Totally normal to run into him on your old college campus, where he definitely should not be. “Wait, what are you doing here?” 

Tommy suddenly seems very interested in the grass next to the sidewalk. Jon wants to reach out and pull his face up. Jon wants to do a lot of things he can’t do. Instead he looks at the stack of Tommy’s things that he’s still holding. Under a notebook that Jon knows is from the register of the restaurant, there’s a familiar looking black folder. When he shifts the pile in his hands, Tommy finally notices he’s holding it and makes an aborted grab for the folder at the same time Jon’s hand closes around it. “Jon, don’t.” 

Jon ignores him and opens the folder. He feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. _Thomas Frederick Vietor IV_ \-- _Bachelor of Arts_ \-- _Summa Cum Laude_. “Tommy. You…” 

_“Jon come on, you’re not doing yourself any good right now.” Tommy’s just walked in their front door from work and Jon squints at him from the couch where he’s bundled up in a thousand blankets and surrounded by all of his notes for International Institutions. Jon’s had a stubborn cold for a week and woke up this morning with a migraine but he also has a giant test in two days._

_“I’m fine! I have to finish reading this.” He undercuts his point when shaking his book at Tommy makes him wince from the effort._  

_“You cannot possibly be retaining any of it,” Tommy sighs and disappears into the kitchen. Jon leans his head back against the couch. He’ll just close his eyes for a second. Jon realizes Tommy’s come back a few minutes later when he pulls Jon up by the shoulders so he can sit down beside him. His hands are cold where they touch Jon’s neck and he leans into the contact without meaning to. “Yeah, you’re totally fine, not sick at all.”_  

_Jon grumbles, but lets Tommy keep rearranging Jon’s body to his liking. He slides Jon’s head down into his lap carefully and sets a cold washcloth on his forehead. “I need to…”_

_“I know,” Tommy says. Jon can feel him lift the book from his unresisting fingers. “Just, close your eyes for a minute, reading always makes your headaches worse.” Jon’s barely opened his mouth to protest when Tommy’s voice continues, going smooth and clear like when he used to give presentations in high school, “In 1945, representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter…”_

_When Tommy finishes reading the book, probably an hour later, he leans down to kiss Jon’s forehead. “Can you sleep a bit now?”_

_Jon’s already half asleep to be honest, but Tommy’s quiet voice had gotten more information into his head than the blurring words he was trying to read. “Yeah. Sorry that was so boring.”_

_“It’s really cool.” Right, his husband is a giant nerd. “I like learning about, like, foreign policy and stuff, you know that.”_  

_“Mhmm.” Jon turns his head to lean against Tommy’s stomach. “You really should go back to school Tommy.”_  

_Tommy sighs as his hand comes up to stroke Jon’s hair gently. “Someday. I promise.”_  

Tommy’s face is inscrutable. He reaches out again to take his diploma, _his diploma_ , from Jon’s hands and Jon forces his fingers to loosen. He recognizes absently that his vision has tunnelled down to Tommy’s face. Tommy’s meeting his eyes though, locked in some weirdly charged staring contest. Jon doesn’t know how long they’re frozen there before Tommy breaks the silence. “Well I didn’t want to walk so I had to…” 

Jon nods like that makes any sense and wills his heart out of his throat. He suddenly remembers that his friends are behind him and he searches his brain for a normal response. “Congratulations.” His voice is too flat. “Really, um, summa cum laude, impressive.” 

Tommy, as always, saves him from himself. “You would know,” he says softly, sounding almost fond. He turns away from Jon and says politely, at a normal volume, “Hey, I’m Tommy Vietor. Jon and I go way back.” Jon watches him shake the others’ hands, still frozen in the same spot. Tommy looks back at him, “I’ve gotta…” He jerks his head towards the parking lot and Jon nods dumbly. “Hey. Good luck tomorrow.” Jon chokes on air as Tommy walks away. 

“Thanks,” he calls too quietly, a beat too late. Alyssa is looking at him with a funny look on her face. 

“He’s hot,” Ronan says appreciatively, as they start walking again. 

“Yeah, hon, doesn’t seem like you’ve got much of a shot there.” Jon hears Alyssa respond. He doesn’t want to think too long about that. 

Lovett’s oft-heard complaint is echoing in Jon’s head. _It’s like any time I’ve got a hot guy’s attention Favs or Tommy has to show up and ruin my life. WHY GUYS WHY?_ He smiles in spite of himself. Then he shakes his shoulders out and points out the shitty cafeteria and his freshman dorm. 

\----- 

Ali had somehow managed to find a free weekend at the historic house right outside of town at the very beginning of summer. Jon hasn’t been here since his fifth grade history class visited for a field trip, but looking around as the band starts playing, he has to admit it’s a really nice venue. 

_They get married on the beach, of course. They decide to get married in early May, when there’s still a bit of chill in the air but before the tourists descend on the town. The morning of the wedding, Jon’s parents, Stella, and their friends spend an hour setting up folding chairs that they’ve collected from everyone in town._  

That morning, in his bedroom at his parents’ house, Jon had felt weirdly calm as he fought with his bowtie. His mom came in just when he was about to give up and reached out to tie it for him. They’d both turned to look at the mirror at the same time. 

“You look good sweetie.” 

“Well I am one of the ‘world’s most beautiful people’, don’t you know?” She laughs at him and straightens his jacket. 

“As long as you’re happy.” She walks out of his room and Jon stares at himself in the mirror for a long time. 

_Jon and Tommy are supposed to get ready separately. It’s all of ten o’clock in the morning when Jon can’t stand it anymore and takes the hanger with all his clothes on it and his toiletry bag from his parents’ over to their new house. Tommy opens the door with a confused expression that melts away into a grin when he sees Jon._  

_“Couldn’t wait?”_  

_“Turns out I like being around you.” Jon’s smile feels stuck on. “Guess it’s a good thing I’m gonna promise to be around you forever.”_

_“Good thing.” Tommy steps forward and Jon thinks he’s about to kiss him but instead he picks Jon up and carries him, giggling, over the threshold._  

_“Tommy! I think you’re supposed to do that after we’re married for the luck!”_  

_“Guess I’ll have to do it again.” This time Tommy does lean in for a kiss._  

Jon’s regretting his refusal to have any groomsmen as he stands at the front of the aisle by himself. He feels very exposed, with everyone staring at him. He catches eyes with his parents in the front row and his mom smiles at him like she’s watching him in an elementary school play. 

Dan and Alyssa are deep in an intense whispered conversation that if he had to bet is about some crisis they’re worried is unfolding while they’re not in DC. The rest of his coworkers are stretched out next to them, checking the news or baseball scores on their phones. Ali’s family and friends are across the aisle and Jon exchanges nods with one of her cousins who he’s met like, twice. 

Lovett did come, Jon realizes with a shock. He wasn’t sure he would but there he is, behind Alyssa. Sitting next to… that’s Ronan. Jon smiles to himself. Lovett’s moving to DC in a couple weeks, it’s good to know he already knows people beyond Jon. He’s going to love it, Jon’s sure. Lovett must feel Jon’s eyes on him because he looks up and they make eye contact. Lovett makes a stupid face and Jon has to stifle a laugh. 

_Lovett had thrown a fit about whose side he was going to stand on that culminated in a suggestion that he just run from side to side throughout the ceremony. Jon had been half tempted to say yes, just to watch him inevitably trip over his own feet. Tommy had firmly squashed the idea and suggested a coin toss._

_It’s Erin, they decide later, who first suggests that he just officiate the damn thing. It’ll be her fault if it all goes to shit. He gets licensed off the internet and the retired priest who baptized Jon agrees to come and make sure it’s all done legally. Lovett makes a lot of jokes about how he’s probably the ‘youngest gay person ever to officiate a gay wedding, rainbows are going to explode’ and threatens to include all kinds of embarrassing stories. Jon catches him working on his speech at 2 a.m. in the bookstore one night when Jon’s driving back from school late, he’s going to be great. Erin and Elijah do literally flip a coin._

The music swells and Ali’s niece comes flying down the aisle with flower petals. Then everyone stands and Jon can see Ali, walking down the aisle on her dad’s arm. She looks like an angel in her shimmering white dress and Jon swallows hard around the lump in his throat.   

He only realizes he’s biting his lip, hard, when Ali gives him a slightly quizzical look as she gets close. With effort, Jon unlocks his jaw and smiles at her, trying to chase away the sand in his head. They’re standing on grass, not the beach. He’s looking down into Ali’s face, his eyes aren’t tilted slightly up to meet Tommy’s. Jon is here in the now, thirty years old with a good job and a good life, not a nineteen year old college student trying to figure himself out. 

_They’d planned to just walk down the aisle together but about a week before the wedding they’re talking through the ceremony with their families and find out that that was not everyone’s plan._  

_“I thought… I don’t know it’s stupid.” Stella volunteers hesitantly when the conversation has stilled into an awkward silence._  

_So Jon walks in with his parents and Tommy follows with Stella. They’d flipped a coin for that order too, but Jon has never been more glad for the outcome of a coin toss because he gets to turn and watch as Tommy approaches, smiling brighter than the sun that’s shining in his hair._  

“Dearly Beloved, we are gathered together here today..” Lovett says, no, Ali’s childhood pastor says. Jon breathes hard and grabs for Ali’s hand. Here. Now. The pastor keeps talking but Jon’s not processing it at all. 

Lovett’s quoting the Princess Bride, unable to hold in his own giggles and Tommy is staring daggers at him. “Mawwiage. Mawwiage is wat bwings us togeder today… No but actually, Jon and Tommy are what brings us together today. These two have the disgusting, sickening kind of fairytale love that you read about in the storybooks…” 

No! The pastor is saying, “The covenant of marriage was established by God...” Jon blinks hard and looks around again. Ali’s mom is already tearing up, his mom is watching him carefully. Lovett is looking away. He turns back to look at Ali and she looks, blurry. 

“I… I need a minute.” Jon doesn’t realize he’s spoken until Ali gasps. He steps back, dropping her hand. The crowd is murmuring but it sounds like it’s far away. Jon can’t seem to get his lungs to draw breath. 

He takes a few steps away towards the side of the house. Ali follows him and when they’re out of the immediate view of everyone she whispers, “Jon what the fuck!”

Jon can’t believe he’s doing this to her. Pain and outrage are warring for dominance on her face. Jon looks away. At the tip of his shoe is a small shiny object and he reaches for it without thinking. It’s a tiny piece of glass, probably from a beer bottle and as his finger catches the edge of it and a tiny cut starts to bleed, Jon’s panicked brain clears. 

He can’t do this. He can’t marry Ali. “I can’t marry you.” 

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.” 

“I’m so sorry Ali.” He reaches out for her but she shies away. “I didn’t know.” He says softly. 

“How did you not know!” Her voice is rising and outrage is definitely winning. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He’s not really talking to Ali anymore, a small part of him realizes. “I just… I gave my heart away a long time ago, my whole heart, and I never really got it back.” 

Ali’s face is cold, but she understands what he means immediately, he can tell. “Fuck you Jon,” she spits and turns away. 

Part of him wants to run after her as she walks away. But the larger part is the voice from his heart that’s been chanting a message he couldn’t quite make out since he put on his tux, since he collided with a firm body on the path yesterday, since he forced Lovett to spill secrets a month ago, since Stella hugged him three months ago, since he puked on the side of the road, since he drove out of town eight years ago. That voice is now screaming: _Tommy, Tommy, Tommy_. 

Jon turns away from the wedding and runs. 

The door slams open and Jon almost falls into the restaurant. Stella looks up from the glasses she’s lining up behind the bar with alarm. Her eyes only widen further when she takes in Jon in her doorway. 

“Aren’t you, um, supposed to be somewhere right now?” 

Jon’s breathing hard. “Stella. Where’s Tommy?” 

Stella’s jaw drops. She walks around the bar and moves towards Jon slowly, like he’s gone completely insane but Jon can see something like hope in her eyes. 

“Seriously Jon, tux, wedding, bride? You remember that right?” She’s looking at his hand and he remembers that he’s bleeding. She turns and walks back across the restaurant and reaches under the register, coming back with a paper towel in her hand.

“Stella please. Do you know where he is?” Stella stares at him hard as she grabs his hand and wraps the paper towel around his finger. When she’s satisfied that it’s clean enough, she holds out a band-aid and wraps it carefully around the cut. Jon makes an impatient noise. _Tommy, Tommy, Tommy._

Stella grabs his shoulder, still staring at him intently. “Jon. Are you absolutely sure?” 

Jon is sure of nothing right now. He feels like he’s been flipped upside down on that terrible ride at the carnival that pretends to be a ferris wheel but actually spins you 360 degrees. But he has never been more certain that there is one person who he needs. Needs in order to be his full self, needs to be in his life, needs to tell the whole truth to _right now_. 

“I’m three hundred percent sure,” he says, meeting Stella’s gaze head on. She must find what she’s looking for in his eyes because she nods almost imperceptibly. 

“The beach.” She says softly, squeezing his shoulder tight and then letting go. Jon’s running again, remembering to call out his thanks only after he’s leaped over the steps of the porch. _Tommy, Tommy, Tommy._  

There are eight million tourists on the beach and Jon curses the summer weather as he weaves through them. He worries about how the hell he’s going to find Tommy, but his feet know where he’s going even as his brain frets. He passes the lifeguard stand and sees the rocks rising from the beach where the tourists don’t want to sit. Tommy is leaning down by the waves, reaching for something in the sand. Jon’s heart aches just looking at the curve of his back. _Tommy, Tommy, Tommy._  

_“I, Jonathan Favreau, take you, Thomas Vietor, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you all the days of my life.”_  

_“I, Thomas Vietor, take you, Jonathan Favreau, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you all the days of my life.”_  

_There’s a long pause and they break away from looking into each others’ eyes to look at Lovett. “Oh! I now pronounce you husband and husband. Please kiss!” They both giggle and then Jon leans in, reaching out a hand to cup Tommy’s chin. Tommy’s hands come up around his neck and they kiss amidst the cheers._

Jon picks his way carefully through the rocks and sand towards the water and Tommy. His dress shoes are going to be ruined in the sand but he couldn’t give less of a fuck. _Tommy, Tommy, Tommy._ Tommy straightens up  and takes a few steps further down the beach, still looking down at the sand. Jon can’t bear it anymore. “Tommy!” 

Tommy looks up and turns towards Jon’s voice. He looks like he can’t believe his eyes and Jon starts running again, desperate to close the distance between them. The voice from his heart is just incoherent with joy at this point. Jon reaches Tommy and tries to stop, feet slipping in the wet sand. Tommy’s hands come out instinctively to steady him, dropping the shells and sea glass he’d been gathering. 

“What are you doing Favreau?” Tommy says gently. “I’m pretty sure you’re meant to be getting married right now.” Jon shakes his head. Fuck, now he’s here and the words don’t want to come. 

“I’m not.” 

“You’re not meant to be getting married now? Wasn’t the invite time 3:30?” Jon ignores the mental image of Tommy looking at the wedding invitation that Ali had picked out and he’d secretly hated. 

“I’m not getting married.” Tommy’s face goes blank. Jon hates it when Tommy’s face goes blank. “I’m not marrying Ali. Not today, not ever. I broke it off. Fuck, I just left her at the altar.” 

“Well you’re a dick.” Tommy isn’t quite laughing, but there’s amusement lurking behind the carefully blank mask.

“Yeah, but you already knew that.” Jon takes a deep breath. Tommy is still holding his arms. Jon turns his hands to gently clasp Tommy’s forearms. “I told her that I couldn’t marry her because I was in love with someone else. Because I’ve always been in love with someone else.” 

Tommy pulls back and Jon’s fingers tighten on his arms. He can’t pull away until Jon tells him. “Jon.” Tommy looks scared and Jon wants to hold him tight and promise him it’ll all be okay. He can’t do that yet though.

“Tommy please.” Jon squeezes his arms again. “I have loved you since before I knew what love was. I let my ambition and stubbornness get in the way and I’m so sorry, but Tommy, there has not been a single day when I didn’t love you. I understand if you…” He swallows. This is the hard part. “I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me. But Tommy, just say the fucking word. Move to DC. I’ll quit my job and move back here. I just don’t want to spend another second without you by my side, if you’ll have me.” 

Tommy pulls his arms back again and this time Jon lets him go. Okay. Okay. 

Tommy’s covering his face with one hand, breathing almost as hard as Jon is. When he looks up, he looks resolved. Jon’s stomach is in knots. Tommy shakes his head slowly. “You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that?” 

Jon can feel tears rushing to his eyes and he blinks them back hard. “Right. Sorry. I’ll just…” He takes a step backwards. 

“Whoa, hold on.” Tommy is moving back towards him, reaching out tentatively. His hands find Jon’s shoulders and Jon chances a look up into his face. Tommy is smiling. “You drive me so fucking crazy. God, I love you.” Jon almost falls over in relief. 

“Tommy.” He says it softly, like Tommy’s name is a prayer. Distantly he realizes that tears are falling down his cheeks. Tommy reaches up to wipe his face with his thumb. His hand settles on Jon’s face, pulling him closer as Tommy leans in. 

It feels like the first time Jon felt a tingle when their hands touched, it feels like the first time they kissed, it feels like Tommy carrying him to bed on their wedding night. The kiss feels like all the memories they’ve shared and the promise of the future. 

Jon has never been happier than he is right now. Possibly he forgot what happiness felt like in the years without Tommy’s arms around him. The entire world has narrowed to the feeling of Tommy’s hand on his face, his other hand tugging on Jon’s bow tie until the disheveled knot slips out. Jon’s racing thoughts are slowing, calming, settling into the taste of Tommy’s lips, the familiar smells of saltwater and sweat and soap, the sound of the waves.

His heart is singing with the joyful knowledge that Tommy still wants him. Tommy still loves him. Jon can still have this. 

“I love you so much,” he says against Tommy’s mouth. Tommy makes a small noise and pulls Jon even closer. Jon wraps his arms around his back and squeezes tightly. He can do that, he can hold him again. He can lose himself in kissing Tommy for as long as he wants. He can kiss Tommy. 

“Oh thank fucking god!” A voice yells from behind them and they break apart. Jon wraps his arm around Tommy’s waist, holding him close as they turn to see Lovett approaching on the beach. “You two are the most idiotic…” 

He’s still talking but Jon tunes him out in favor of leaning into Tommy’s chest. “I’m coming to DC.” Tommy whispers into his ear. “You are _not_ fucking quitting that job. Anyway, someone’s got to babysit Lovett.” 

Jon is never going to stop smiling. Tommy loves him. “I love you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> As with everything I've written for this fandom, this wouldn't exist without Maggie who created the concept with me in chatfic in October and encouraged every fucking step of this process. We all have her to thank for answering important questions from "can busybody be an adjective?" to "is Favs too skeezy?" to "wait, where the fuck did Tommy just disappear to?" (The fact that I ignored some of these answers is not her fault). Then she added all the commas I ignored and generally made it so much better <3 Also endless thanks to @angelorum and @halfalump for all the encouragement :D
> 
> Terribly self-indulgent playlist if you're into that stuff: https://8tracks.com/everyonewillsee/don-t-dance-all-night-with-me
> 
> I'm always vietreau trash on tumblr @everyonewillsee


End file.
